From G S Haly Company

G S Haly website :
There are four distinctive picking seasons and over 70 gardens to choose from in the Darjeeling tea-growing district. The G.S. Haly Co. purchases teas primarily from the First Flush (February/March) and Second Flush (June/July) because of the distinctive characteristics of the first two flushes of the growing season.
First Flush is purchased in limited quantity. Teas purchased during the peak of the season are flown into San Francisco, delivering the freshest tea anywhere in the world outside of the growing region. First Flush teas have a very bright floral cup and are often compared to the young, Beaujolais production of wines.
Second Flush production is the primary base for stock Darjeeling inventories. The G.S. Haly Co.’s mission is to find the classic muscatel character, for which Darjeelings are famous. Darjeeling offerings range from the heavier TGBOP types right through to the lighter, more floral TGFOP teas.

Notes:
If you do manage to go out to the G S Haly Company website you will find them to be a bulk/wholesale supplier with a diverse and interesting line up of teas. Not massively carrying lots of varietials, they have a tendency to choose a few very solid options and cover the ‘bases’. Having cupped a number of thier teas, I can attest to the quality of what they offer. In blind comparisons with many other tea wholesalers you will be surprised at how high they often come up being the top pick. The down side is the bulk quantity that is needed to purchase to make it worth the buy, but I’m quite sure there are some retailers out there with the storage, volume, and customer base that are benifiting from having aces from them. That being said, you will also note from the site that specific cupping descriptions are hard to find or minimal at best, so for those not able or willing to cup, the teas are a bit of a mystery unless you are already in the know.

I first was exposed to Darjeeling Ambootia Estate a number of years ago when it was a random sample and offering that made it onto Staufs Coffee Roasters holiday shelf. I was a professed Darjeeling hater, totally frustrated with the continuously bitter and astrigently expressive cup, that lacked the forgiving depth of white teas and the deep, carameled bodies of the Assams, yet falling somewhere in the wild middle. So when this tea came in I would have overlooked it, except it came at a higher cost, and under inspection showed a much larger leaf than I was used to seeing in a tea from Darjeeling. I was encouraged also by the seller to give it a go and so I did.
Darjeeling Ambootia opened my eyes and senses to Darjeelings. Its character, depth of flavor, sweetness, and forgiving extractions started a path that would only end after I had gone back to as many Darjeeling estates, including white, green, and oolongs from Darjeeling, and returned with the secret: treat it with the care you would a white tea – cool down the water temp and shorten the steep time. Stop the extraction when it was the color of ‘champagne’ – hence the nickname given to it by antiquity. Wow, what a difference that made.
I also learned that Darjeeling was special for another reason: it is actually a Chinese varietial that was transplated and unlike the rest of India, Africa, and Ceylon, it thrived there. I also loved the fact that its name translates as ‘lightning’.
So I decided to present this tea review as a gift. It was in this tea that my illusions began to crack and my deeper tea awareness began to form.
This particular crop is nice, though its not quite the leaf that I had those years back, but what a message it says, when a tea can scald the memory.
Namaste.

Preparation

I found the same thing you did- and about at the same time. We just got in a new darjeeling, a SFTGFOP-1 that is now available solely to our store, and I was sick of the bitterness… and then it dawned on me. While technically a black tea, much of the tea leaf I see appears as a green or white tea would… As much consideration should be afforded the darjeeling in respect to black tea as gyokuro is to green tea.